Poetry at Britomart: ACTIVITIES by Laura Vincent

ACTIVITIES

 

 

You know when you’re not strong enough

 

to articulate your feelings because all of your strength

 

is being used for one thing and that one thing is

 

ACTIVITIES

 

endless ACTIVITIES

 

when that person invites you to paper-mâché a to-scale volcano

 

or to ride a bicycle across the frozen moors

 

or to play Equable ‘The Game of Math’ and even though you had plans already

 

you say YES without hesitation

 

YES I’ll help you make your own soap

 

YES I’ll wander round Bunnings finding materials to make decorations for the party

 

you haven’t invited me to yet

 

YES I’ll walk with you for two miles in the middle of the night

 

to fly a kite in the dark

 

YES I’ll dance in a forest to your friend’s jam band

 

as he gurns behind a vape cloud

 

YES I’ll watch the final Hobbit movie but in slow motion

 

because it really brings out Tolkien’s intention that way

 

YES I’ll climb a hill

 

 

 

In Elif Batuman’s book The Idiot Selin goes all the way to Hungary to teach English to try to appease the withholding Ivan

 

In the TV show Fleabag the main character keeps having talks in the dark about foxes with the Hot Priest

 

In the film Carol Therese goes to lunch and then to get a Christmas tree and then to Carol’s stately home

 

so you see everyone’s doing ACTIVITIES

 

and you have to agree to them all because you can’t let it end

 

and if you don’t say YES you could miss the thing

 

that finally gets them to tenderly hold your face

 

and look you in the eyes and say

 

 

 

I’m so glad you’re here let’s spend the rest of our time on this Earth

 

making each other’s lives amazing everything’s so hard

 

but it feels easier when you’re around let’s do this together YES

 

 

 

Or at least

 

 

 

Would you like to pash

 

here on this cliff-face that we’ve just scaled

 

 

 

Or at least

 

 

 

I noticed that you’re not talking about how sunburnt you’re getting

 

let’s go inside

 

 

 

But they never do so you just keep forlornly agreeing

 

to more ACTIVITIES and I can’t tell you

 

to simply express your feelings because

 

I’m not that stupid and I’m not that clever

 

instead I suggest

 

 

 

keep saying YES to ACTIVITIES

 

 

 

When they ask you to hike through your city’s most forbidding swamps

 

say YES then stride ahead and playfully push them into the mud

 

just playfully PUSH them and when they suggest a visit to that paperclip exhibition

 

say YES but first let’s quickly shop for a QUALITY WINTER COAT

 

then make them watch you try on FIFTEEN coats

 

and then you don’t even buy ANY

 

and when they want you to watch them practise the violin for forty minutes

 

and then get a smoothie without asking you a single question

 

about your life

 

tell them YES you’d love to drop everything for that

 

and then grab the violin out of their hands

 

that will never touch you

 

just GRAB that violin and start playing Zadok the Priest by Handel

 

and now you’re in charge

 

and you’ve jolted yourself out of your accommodating submersion

 

and you have BECOME THE ACTIVITY

 

and then throw their violin on the floor and run just RUN for miles

 

 

 

by yourself